Shawn DeWolfe - Arthttps://shawn.dewolfe.ca/taxonomy/term/47
enVinyl - Part Onehttps://shawn.dewolfe.ca/blog/vinyl-1.html
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<div style="float: left; width: 60%; margin-right: 5px;">"We're giving away vinyl LPs!" announced a friend. The secondhand store he worked at was getting out of the vinyl and doing in a big way. They had seven shelves of LPs records free for the picking. You could take as many as you want. This was about four weeks ago, so I had yet to get an acute taste of anti-hoarding. I said "Load me up!" I remember moving days in the 1970s and early 1980s. If you had cool friends (or your Mom had cool friends), they had two things: too many LP records and not enough money for professional movers. I dreaded the deceptively small record box with its super-heavy discs of herniation. Every move: I got to carry the LPs. When CDs came out, the discs in my spine welcomed the discs in the jewel cases.<br/><br/>
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I went into the secondhard store with my faithful Padawan, Alice. Lots of mistransplanted beatniks were carefully combing through the records. They were looking at all of the titles with care and studying each record for any possible scratches or dings. Alice and I found the less populated section and started to grab armloads of records. No rhyme. No reason. We wanted vinyl! Between that trip and the trip the next day, I amassed a stack of LPs about four feet high. Why? Why would I hoard such magic as "The Shell Christmas Memories" album? It's because I own a heat gun!<br/><br/>
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My intention is to heat, twist and warp these records to make them into cool things. Last year, I bought two boxes of keyboards to melt and warp them into the Throne of Nerds. This time around, I plan to warp them to make them into a suit of armor. I figure the vinyl and the audio grooves could look good on a suit of armor-- something between Vader's armor and Vlad Dracul's armor from Coppola's Dracula. <br/><br/>
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<h4>Step One: Baby Steps</h4>
I asked my mom if I could loan some of her really big aluminum cooking bowls. These are almost two feet across. They have a nice gradual curvature and they can take the heat. I have some clamps that I use to grab and hold parts of the LP record as it gets worked over. I used the heat gun to make repeated passes over the LP to soften it-- to it from hard plastic to soft taffy. The LPs are quick to cool, so I need to have a solid strategy to make this all work. I have to know where the bends and creases are to go. When I sculpt, I fight with the medium. It will go its own way and take me along for the ride. I need to tame the materials to do my bidding.<br/><br/>
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Today's experiments came with rain, so there has to be a part two and three to project. Part one: I was able to use the heat gun to melt the vinyl. Record vinyl is less pliable that, say, vinamold. It can be bnet and pulled, but when it is pull took much, there will be a fissure and it will separate. Good to know!<br/><br/>
<h4>Step Two: Coming Soon</h4>
When I get a discretionary day that comes without rain, I will get back to the records. I will try to bend and pull the records to shapes of my choosing. When I am done, I hope to be able to work 60 records into one suit of vinyl armor.<br/><br/>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/90-day-challenge.html">90-Days</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/47">Art</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/71">Vinyl</a></div></div></div>Sun, 06 Jul 2014 05:53:23 +0000Shawn DeWolfe92 at https://shawn.dewolfe.caMaybe Arthttps://shawn.dewolfe.ca/blog/maybe-art.html
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">I fancy myself an artist. Some days, it feels like I am a sandwich artist in search of a sandwich shop, but I still would like to be an artist. Why have I not donned a beret? The why is confidence, confidence spawned by economics and the academic nature of fine art.<br/><br/>
<div style="max-width: 53%; margin-right: 2%; float: left;">When it comes to the economics, I have not sold much of my artwork. I put a man-sized Cthulhu sculpture onto my lawn. It stops traffic, but none of them notice the "For Sale" part of the sign. I have hundreds of hits per day of people looking at my Throne of Nerds. When people online say, "I want to buy that!" and I share the link to <a href="http://mike.dewolfe.bc.ca/art/throne_of_nerds.html">the purchase page</a>, they don't follow through, falling silent. I have put my stuff into local shops. Some of it sells, but the pace is very slow. The concept of being an artist is internal. The validation about being an artist is external. A slow uptake of my artwork leaves me feeling invalidated. <br/><br/>
My art is weird, I'm the first to admit it. I am separating from my long time fixation with all things <a href="http://mike.dewolfe.bc.ca/node/2442">Cthulhu</a> (I never intended to be on the subject for so long). I have done other weird things: zombie garden gnomes; <a href="http://mike.dewolfe.bc.ca/art/alien-trophy.html">alien heads mounted as trophies</a>; and a <a href="http://mike.dewolfe.bc.ca/art/apocalypse_hummer.html">post-apocalyptic Barbie Hummer</a>. Some of my work is rough. I go for the impression of the piece over and above the cold recreation of reality-- that's like from my early fascination with oil painting: this depiction of a scene, that, up close, look like peaks, piles and smudges of oil paint. <br/><br/>
I know others who have done art shows. I have not. I have enough material (I think) to take part in an art show, but the lack of sales makes me think that an art show is run before I walk concept. I my stuff "out there" and it doesn't do more than garner some uneasy regard.<br/><br/>
From a position of academic merits, I question if I what it takes. Victoria is home to lots of public art that makes people wince. When I decry the big water jug; or the stone bed; or the canoe atop tulips; the column ready to crush citizens-- those with fine art credentials leap to the defense of the public art. Okay: there's a disconnect. I think public art has to be more interesting than the successful execution of CYA holding to accepted theories in fine art. <br/><br/>
So, what did I do today? I took some wire out to the back deck and began putting together the proof of concept for a larger piece. What will it look like? Stay tuned.
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dewolfe001/14315497762" title="Proof of Concept by Shawn DeWolfe, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3831/14315497762_1a898f694d.jpg" width="500" height="420" alt="Proof of Concept" style="max-width: 90%; height: auto;" ></a>
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dewolfe001/5355911991" title="Creepy Gnome (close-up and front view) by Shawn DeWolfe, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5050/5355911991_c93b265f69.jpg" width="458" height="500" alt="Creepy Gnome (close-up and front view)" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;"></a>
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Art for me is an extension of the self. If my art needs to be embellished with more information about the motivation of the piece, I too, as an artist, need an <a href="/blog/artists-statement.html">artists statement</a>.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/90-day-challenge.html">90-Days</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/47">Art</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/48">Cthulhu Sculpture</a></div></div></div>Sat, 31 May 2014 22:03:12 +0000Shawn DeWolfe58 at https://shawn.dewolfe.ca